Google algorithm change to get a handle on doorway pages
Sites that attempt to maximize their ‘search footprint’ by putting in place doorway campaigns will soon be penalized in Google’s rankings.
Google’s definition of a doorway page or site says they are “created to rank highly for specific search queries”. The reason they are bad for the user experience is that they “can lead to multiple similar pages in user search results, where each result ends up taking the user to essentially the same destination. They can also lead users to intermediate pages that are not as useful as the final destination”.
According to Brian White of Google’s Webspam Team, doorway campaigns “manifest themselves as pages on a site, as a number of domains, or a combination thereof”. Such campaigns are considered harmful to the quality of a user’s search experience.
As such, Google is taking action and adjusting ranking algorithms to deal with the problem. At the same time, Google has changed its definition of what constitutes a doorway page or campaign. ClickThrough’s Oliver Pyper takes a closer look at these changes.
